


Before I Sleep

by suyari



Category: Red Band Society
Genre: Lordi - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 08:48:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2645648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suyari/pseuds/suyari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jordi wakes from his surgery. Leo's waiting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before I Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr immediately following the pilot episode.

The first thing Jordi thinks upon waking is ‘Leo didn’t mention that’. The second, after Leo’s response of, “Didn’t mention what?” is ‘Did I say that out loud?’

Leo laughs and prods him in the knee. “Side effect of anesthesia,” he says. “Makes you really honest for a while.” The bed dips, a hand settling over his thigh to keep his leg from jostling. “At least until the pain killers wear off. What didn’t I mention?”

Jordi swallows. His throat feels dry and his tongue fuzzy. He pushes it against the roof of his mouth, testing it against nerves that still marginally function. 

“Here,” Leo says. 

When he looks up, his roommate is hovering over him, holding a glass. He shakes his head when Jordi tries to take it. 

“Your coordination’s shit, man. Just relax.” The glass is pressed against his lips, Leo’s other hand carefully cradling his head so he doesn’t choke. “It’ll take the pressure off your leg.” 

He wasn’t aware he was tense, and the reminder feels like consciously flipping a switch. He sinks back deeper into the pillows and Leo nods, shuffling closer and setting the cup aside. “You did good.” He cocks his head, making a face. “It looks good.” 

“How-?” he asks feeling dread clench in his gut. He isn’t sure why it’s there. It isn’t as if he’d gone into the surgery unaware. Wasn’t as if Leo hadn’t stayed up with him all night, whispering answers in the dark to questions his mind was too frightened to focus on and ask. “How much…”

“Lot more than mine.” 

He tries to look, but his neck won’t cooperate. His leg is bandaged up, strapped to something. He can’t feel his foot. Tries to wiggle his toes into dead space. He sits up suddenly, not managing to get very far before his body collapses back under the weight of gravity. 

“Jordi. Jordi, relax. Look.” Leo pushes himself up and picks up one of his crutches, leaning into it as he steps toward the end of the bed. “Just…” His voice is calm and it strikes a chord in him. They haven’t known each other very long, but he finds he trusts Leo like he’s never trusted another person in his life. Leo gets it. Leo knows. Leo’s been through the scary unknown and come out the other end. And Leo has that sense about him. The strength of heroes and great kings of old, and the leaders who never need to be taught, because they were born with a destiny so vast they were awe inspiring from birth. 

“Jordi,” he says, and Jordi looks immediately. Feels his throat catch around a swell of emotion that suddenly threatens to choke him. His foot is resting against Leo’s arm, his heel tucked against his elbow. “See? Lots more.”

He inhales deeply, sharp and with a touch of ozone. His chest feels weighted, and he shifts directionless, as Leo sets his leg back down carefully and moves around the bed to his other side. 

“Might not look like much now, but it’ll get stronger.”

Or weaker, he doesn’t say. The way his had. To be cut away in pieces, to be carved up and stolen in swaths he’ll never get back. Who knows how much of it will be left by the end of it. Leo nudges his hand and he picks it up, giving his roommate room to settle down beside him. Leo sets his crutch back against the side table and reaches down. Fingers positioned in a claw, he rakes it slowly up his thigh. He does it a few times before looking back over his shoulder. “Feel that?”

“A little,” he admits, swallowing again. 

“That’s good. Your other leg’s going to itch like crazy.”

“Why?”

Leo shrugs. “It just does. Something about equilibrium in the brain.” He lies back, rolls onto his side so he can keep raking. It’s soothing in its way and Jordi can feel his eyelids start to grow heavy. “When they finally took all of it,” he says quietly. “It hurt like all my muscles were cramping at once. They weren’t, of course. They weren’t there.” 

“What’d you do?”

“Cried mostly.” 

He snorts a laugh and Leo smiles, claw smoothing out into fingertips that brush long sweeps over him. 

“Nurse Jackson taught me a trick.”

He blinks, head rolling to the side to look at him. “What was it?”

“She massaged my other leg.”

“That worked?”

“Surprisingly, yeah.”

“Huh.”

“We’re going to get through this, Jordi. I’ve got you. You don’t have to do it alone.”

“I know.” He reaches for Leo’s hand, pausing it in it’s traveling by twining their fingers. “Thanks, Leo.” 

Leo’s head rolls closer so he’s mostly squinting at him through heavy eyes. Leo’s steady as they peer back. “They gave you the good stuff.”

“Mmm…”

“Jordi?”

“Mmm?”

“When you were under...did you...Did you see a kid there?”

His eyes flutter open, a burst of adrenaline assisting him to alertness for the briefest of moments. “How did you…?”

Leo smiles. “What’d he tell you?”

He thinks, trying to find the memory in the haze rapidly clouding his brain. “Welcomed me. Told me...to take care of you. Said…” He yawns, wide and long. “Said you’d never admit it, but...we’re good for each other. Said...we...have to stick...together through the survi-ving… part. Because...we have a lot...of living to do...Together.”

“Yeah,” Leo says, extending an arm so he’s more or less enveloping Jordi in his personal space. It’s warm in there. Peaceful. Safe. Leo is strong, and if just for now, he’ll keep watch, keep Jordi safe. Protect him from even the things that linger in his bones, hollow out the worried recesses of his mind and weigh his soul down. The soul he claims no scalpel can ever touch. 

“Charlie’s a romantic. Which is pretty deep for a kid who hasn’t been conscious for-” 

The darkness that greets him is warm and inviting. It blankets him in its caress, circling him in scents of comfort and the touch of contentment he’d always associate with home and family and love. A unique state he’d thought lost to him forever. 

The last thing he thinks before surrendering to it is ‘Kid’s a natural.’


End file.
